We must ask : Are these people qualified to be US Senators ?

[kentuck]

They sit on one of the most important committees. They have access to classified information no one else has access to. But when they are given information that they know or suspect is "illegal", their vow to secrecy is no longer valid. We are a nation of laws that apply to Senators and to the President of the United States.

We are now finding out that a few Senators were told by Bush about his illegal escapade of spying on American citizens. Yet, they did nothing. They were accesserories to the act. Both Democrats and Republicans had this information and chose to do nothing with it. We must ask: are they qualified to represent the people of this country and to protect the Constitution which we all live under?

[aquart]

1. I ask all the time.

Especially after my two Democrats voted for the war and the Patriot Act.

[msongs]

2. almost anyone can be a senator, teachers must pass a test..why?

the lowest forms of political and sexual life can be elected senators and start wars
that murder people. school teachers have to be "highly qualified" and pass multiple
tests to keep their jobs.

maybe it is time to start testing all political candidates before they can run
for office.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Coastie for Truth]

7. The Senator from my birth-state failed the Bar Exam three times

and was "motioned in" but got elected Senator. Of course they kept re-electing Tom Ridge (Governor) and Tom Murphy (Mayor of Pittsburgh) and Pete Flaherty (Mayor of Pittsburgh) :shrug:

<>:shrug:

[kenny blankenship]

3. I wonder though if they aren't in some kind of bind or double bind

regarding the disclosure of information. The information that Bush is spying illegally on Americans was surely classified top secret.
Certain Senators are informed, at least partially, but then what can they say about it without themselves breaking a law?

[kentuck]

5. Exactly!

If they cannot distinguish between their vow to protect "information" and their vow to protect the Constitution, they do not deserve to be in their positions. It's not that difficult of a question.

[kenny blankenship]

14. Except they would perhaps reply

that the line they would cross by spilling the beans in public is definite. And then they are guilty and go to jail--greatly damaging the Democratic Party which would portrayed in the media as not to be trusted with national security. Whereas the line the President is alleged to have crossed is a lot less definite. Does the President have the power to do what he did? Under the most extreme circumstances of war, he would. But are we in those circumstances? When it suits them to portray the nation at peace, the Powers that be portray us as at peace, when it suits them to portray our national situation as one of war, they portray war. It seems a court, or an impeachment hearing, has to rule on this before anyone knows for certain that the law was broken.

You have YOUR opinion on that and I may agree 100%, but that doesn't count for shit in court where talkative Democratic Senators could indeed find themselves.

[kentuck]

15. There are laws to protect whistlblowers...

in these very situations. The NYTimes reported that "senior government officials" (I believe that was the terminology and meaning more than one) gave them the information. We do not know for certain that was not two US Senators. I hope it was. The President, just as Lindsey Graham said this morning, does not have the right to make his own rules or ignore the law, even when we are at war.

[emulatorloo]

4. this sounds like Rovian distraction to me

1. i don't trust any repug talking head that says oh the dems knew all about it. . .just another variation of "dems had same evidence w had," etc. Which as you know is total BS>

2. the issue is bush and gonzales et al. Don;t get distracted

[kentuck]

6. They are all guilty...

It's only a "Rovian distraction" to those so politically paranoid that they refuse to look at a bigger picture.

[emulatorloo]

8. bob graham

Bob Graham:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10509407 /

Extent of policy shift disputed
Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Senate intelligence committee and is the only participant thus far to describe the meetings extensively and on the record, said in interviews Friday night and yesterday that he remembers "no discussion about expanding to include conversations of U.S. citizens or conversations that originated or ended in the United States" -- and no mention of the president's intent to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches. He believed eavesdropping would continue to be limited to "calls that initiated outside the United States, had a destination outside the United States but that transferred through a U.S.-based communications system."

Graham said the latest disclosures suggest that the president decided to go "beyond foreign communications to using this as a pretext for listening to U.S. citizens' communications. There was no discussion of anything like that in the meeting with Cheney."

[kentuck]

10. If the Senators were not informed, they are not guilty...

I have heard several Senators say they were told nothing. It appears that the Adminsitration took it to the extreme that they could inform the oversight committee of one thing and then do another. That is not acceptable. If there were Senators that did know, that is the question. If they do not have the reasoning ability to rationally discern when an act is against the law or unconstitutional, they should not be in the US Senate.

[Gloria]

13. I saw Graham on Nightline...and he is consistent on this..

Cynthia McFadden asked him if the Admin. had lied...and Graham gracefully walked around it, but was very strong in saying that they had not been informed of the spying on US citizens.

[enlightenment]

9. Beyond the very basic qualifications set in the Constitution,

and of course, a HUGE wad of money -- do we have ANY qualifications for our politicos?

Is seems to me that it tends to be a whole lot more about personality than intelligence & commitment, with every stop on the political spectrum equally guilty. How many times have we read about "boring" John Kerry or "crazy" Howard Dean? It really isn't about how they behave, it's about what they are saying -- but we often don't get past the "how" to the "what." The same of course goes for everyone -- I'm not singling out any group.

My question is, what are the qualifications for political office? Since the people elect these folks, perhaps the question should be, what qualifies people to choose others for political office?

I agree with your assessment, but do wonder about the larger question.

[kentuck]

11. It' more than just 35 years old and a citizen of the country...

We should expect some degree of knowledge of our Constitution and our laws and to be able to distinguish when these laws are being broken. And not feel powerless because they have vowed to secrecy. Their vow to uphold the Constitution over-rides any political requests from a ethically-challenged executive.

[enlightenment]

12. I agree.

Yet, how do we assure that the candidates have both the knowledge and the spine when so many voters know far more about the latest 'Paris Hilton moment' than they do the history and law of our nation?